For the last three weeks, some 7,000 cars have been torched in France which has been rocked by riots after two teenagers seeking to avoid police were electrocuted while hiding in an electrical substation.

The image of the burning car in France is being used to tell two stories.

The political far right says these pictures show the “dangers“ of immigration. Some in this spectrum have labeled the immigrant youth “scum,” and have begun to use the riots to tighten links with a populist right-wing extremist population.

Others say the cause of France‘s turmoil is rooted in extreme poverty, high unemployment and racial segregation that hinder immigrant access to jobs.

They say the car symbolizes mobility, something the residents of the immigrant heavy housing projects lack.

Setting them on fire calls the attention of the media, and when the media comes, the politicians follow, is the mantra of the rebelling arsonists.

As France sorts out its troubles with curfews and conciliatory gestures towards a marginalized ethnic community of Arabs and Africans, there are lessons that have been left behind in the burnt-out ruins of the Renaults and Peugeots.

Chief among them is equality of citizenship, access without discrimination and the integration of immigrants.

We are fortunate that Canada has different models on all three fronts, which makes the current French rebellion an unlikely event here.

Economic growth in France, which is muted compared to the rest of Europe, has not trickled down to the poor leading to zones of hopelessness in the immigrant heavy suburbs of France‘s towns and cities.

Those with jobs are protected by strict and expensive hiring and firing rules created by monopolistic unions.

These unions don‘t care if the sons and daughters of immigrants living in ghettoes have no opportunity of even starting a working life.

There is no better tool of integration than a good job.

In Canada, we are continually calling for the better recognition of foreign education and training, and the government listens.

In France, the new, the weak and the poor are too often condemned to a life deprived of any opportunity for upward mobility.

It has taken over 7,000 burnt cars to get this message across in France.

To douse the flames of inequality, France this month announced the creation of a paid training and employment scheme for 50,000 youths from poor areas and a series of measures to improve access to the workplace and to combat discrimination.

It is a step in the right direction but France needs to do more and do more quickly.

It needs a more representative police force to erase the ugly perception that white is not the only colour enforcing the law and black is not the only shade breaking it.

France also needs to accelerate the integration of immigrants into the political process rather than just using them come election time.

The burnt out ruins of the Renaults have one message for France — Reform.